NHS: Cancer Patients

Wednesday 9th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Question

11:14

Asked by

[Lord Sharkey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the latest NHS data on timely diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)]

My Lords, the NHS is meeting six out of eight cancer waiting times standards, with the other two being missed by less than 3%. This is against a backdrop of a more than 90% increase in urgent referrals—that is more than 800,000 more people—and treating nearly 50,000 more patients following a GP referral compared to 2010, an increase of 20%.

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

Why are the regional variations in early cancer diagnosis so very large? For example, the worst is Lincolnshire West at 33% while the best is West Sussex at 61%. Does the Minister agree with Cancer Research UK and the Royal College of Radiologists that an important factor in the NHS missing early diagnosis targets is the shortage of staff to actually do scans, procedures and lab tests?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The new cancer dashboard has given us much more transparency around the country, so at least we now know where the problems are. The noble Lord is absolutely right that the critical area is early diagnosis, which is why one of the targets coming out of the new cancer strategy is that everyone should have a definite diagnosis within 28 days of an urgent referral. He is also absolutely right that one of the major constraining factors is workforce. We will be training an extra 200 non-medical endoscopists over the next couple of years, which should help considerably, but it remains an issue and Health Education England is due to report back in March 2017.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell me whether we are now widely using the form of radiotherapy for cancer which is much less invasive? I think it is called IMRT and we have discussed it in this House before. Is it widely in use now in the National Health Service?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My noble friend is right; the use of IMRT has increased from around 10% to about 40% in the past year—so it is increasing greatly. There is much less collateral damage with IMRT. We have also, as my noble friend will know, commissioned two proton beam centres, at the Christie and UCLH, which will also make a difference. We have just announced a £130 million investment in new linear accelerator machines. Those three developments will, I think, greatly improve our ability to deliver world-class radiotherapy.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not time for a bit of honesty on this? The two targets the Government are missing are the crucial ones of the 62-day cancer treatment waiting time and the two-week wait for referral for patients with suspected cancer. The Government have said that early diagnosis and quick treatment are essential, but those two targets relate exactly to those key points. The Minister knows that, in the mandate for this year, the Government said to NHS England that this must be a priority. But, given the huge funding and staffing pressures on the NHS, is it not time for the Government to come clean and admit that they cannot deliver this?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I think I was being honest, actually. I have never hidden the fact that these targets are very tough and difficult to meet. But we have increased activity enormously. We accept that early diagnosis is critical and probably as important as the 62-day referral for treatment target, which is why the 28-day target from urgent referral to diagnosis is so critical and will be one of the four key targets that will be in the CCG assurance framework. I accept what the noble Lords says; early diagnosis is critical. We are making progress and Sir Harpal Kumar, who developed the cancer strategy a year ago, is overseeing performance and progress towards meeting those targets.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)]

My Lords, is it not the case that many patients have their cancer picked up in an A&E department, having been sent away from their GP several times?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Baroness is right. In 2006 one in five of all new cancers was picked up in an emergency setting. That has reduced to one in four. We are making progress. I think we all accept that our performance on cancer outcomes has lagged behind the best in Europe. The strategy developed by Harpal Kumar is designed to address that. We are making progress but we have some way to go.

[Lord Cotter (LD)]

My Lords, what is being done, additionally, towards the prevention of cancer? There is a lot of feeling that the food chain is adulterated through the use of pesticides and such like. Will the Minister consider doing work in the direction of prevention and investigating possible causes?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, considerable research is going on into precisely the area that the noble Lord refers to. He talked about prevention, which is a hugely important area. Early awareness is also very important. We are running these Be Cancer Aware campaigns; at the moment there is a campaign going on around lung cancer to get early detection. I will investigate further and see what we are doing to investigate the root causes of cancer—whether there is any link to pesticides, for example.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

Further to the opposition spokesman’s comments, will the Minister confirm that in terms of prevention, treatment and cure, we are well behind the coefficients of most other advanced countries?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

There are lies, damned lies and cancer statistics. It is extremely difficult to make comparisons on survival rates with other countries. There is evidence that we are behind the best in Europe on five-year survival rates. There is also considerable evidence that we are making good progress—but, of course, other countries are making good progress at the same time. If we implement the cancer task force recommendations, it is estimated that we will save an extra 30,000 people’s lives per annum. We have a very ambitious programme to improve cancer outcomes, but I accept that we are starting from some way back from the best performance in Europe.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that early diagnosis depends on patients or potential patients recognising the symptoms? Notwithstanding the pressure on services, are the Government continuing to encourage patients to recognise potential cancer symptoms?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point and the answer is yes, we are. Public Health England has a big awareness campaign. As I mentioned, a campaign on lung cancer has just finished. I think that there have been 11 campaigns to raise awareness over the past six years. The National Screening Committee is constantly modernising and updating our screening processes, and has introduced new screening processes that can be done at home—both bowel cancer screening and the HPV screening process for cervical cancer.